The PS of Finland launches witch-hunt against the anonymous senior official who said it was a xenophobic party

The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* have launched a witch-hunt against an anonymous senior official who said on the Financial Timesthat it was unlikely that the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group would want to team up with the PS because it is a”xenophobic and backward-looking 1980s nostalgia [party].”

Said the senior official: “I find it very difficult to believe that [David] Cameron’s Conservatives, with whom we work closely to promote innovative, open and competitive societies, would team up with the True Finns whose rise to large extent is on xenophobia and backward-looking 1980s nostalgia.”

PS party secretary Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo expressed rage in a statement for what the senior official said.

“We expect an answer and clarification [from the ministry for foreign affairs] by Monday. We’ll consider what steps will take after that. The smear campaign of Finland’s third-largest party by the foreign media must end.”

Minister for foreign affairs, Erkki Tuomioja, questioned on YLEif the senior official that was quoted by the Financial Times even worked at the ministry.

While the media has the right to quote anonymous officials, plans to find such a source by the PS reveals how little respect and ignorance of the party for press freedom and how the media works.

The Youth League of the National Coalition Party made 150 proposals last year that, if implemented, would turn Finland into a U.S.-modeled country where money is king. Some of the proposals made by the group are racist and xenophobic and in line with the most far right representatives of the Perussuomalaiset (PS) party.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The names adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.